Nation and Narration

Homespun to Sophisticated:

Place as Transformer

It is common in the transcendental philosophy to associate the act of transcending with a place. Philosophers, artists, and writers fled to Niagara Falls and the White Mountains in search of sublime scenery that would connect them with God. One of the leading Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, states that "Nature deif[ies] us with a few and cheap elements" (Emerson, 27). The essential communion between man and nature, through something he calls the "Oversoul," enables man to transfer the world into the consciousness, thereby uniting himself with God. Ironically, as the Transcendentalists were streaming into the countryside, young women from farms surrounding New England, especially from the White Mountains, were flooding the cities looking for work in the mills. The "Lowell Girls" went into the city to earn money for themselves or for their families and to undergo a transformation from a "homespun country bumpkin" to sophisticated, respected city woman with a "sense of independence." These changes and improvements were part of the Lowell experience. The owners of the mills created a myth of the mills as a transformer which was then perpetuated by the mill girls via word of mouth or through their writings in the Lowell Offering. The fictions in the Lowell Offering express their desire to be seen as transformed into the ideal woman. The act of self-representation through writing, which has as its central essence the transformative power of a place, was utilized by writers such as Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau. The popularity of their writing and their ideas of the importance of the individual's relationship with God, nature and work surely influenced the Lowell women's writing and their desire to be seen as transformed.

According to Transcendental philosophy, "nature is transcendental" (Emerson 197). "There was nothing in the intellect which was not previously in the experience of the senses, by showing that there was a very important class of ideas or imperative forms, which did not come by experience, but through which experience was acquired; that these were intuitions of the mind itself; and [Kant] denominated them Transcendental forms" (Emerson 197). Man experiences God and his power in the natural world. Beauty which is unavoidable in the natural world has "the presence of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element ... essential to its perfection. ... Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue" (Emerson 28). Further, "Beauty of the world" has "a relation to thought" (Emerson 30). "Nature is so needful to man ... To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone" (Emerson 27). Man needs the presence of nature and beauty in his life for the health of his intellect, his soul, his physical body and his appreciation of the world. While Emerson spoke of beauty in nature, and God in nature and came to the conclusion that man in nature is closer to God; Kant clearly separated the beautiful from the sublime. To Kant, the sublime brought one closer to God because it emphasized ones smallness in his presence. The sublime overwhelms the viewer and forces him to consider his mortality while appreciating the magnanimity of God's world. So, to Emerson beauty in nature brings man closer to God, but sublimity, in another sense can also bring man closer to God. The Lowell women, it seems, questioned the necessity for one to find God solely in nature. They went to lectures and read voraciously; they attended church regularly; and they tried to improve themselves in their new setting in much the same way that the Transcendentalists did. The only difference between the two were the physical settings; the open natural beauty of the White Mountains and the "combination of complexity and order on a massive scale" (Nye 113) of the factory towns.

Transcendentalism was never a very well defined philosophy. The definitions of many terms central to transcendentalism change during its time. Ideas of the sublime changed from the Cole's natural, passive sublime to Burke's "terrifying" sublime, and finally included a technological sublime. With the onset of industrialization, nature played an even smaller role in the sublime. Man made buildings, bridges, and structures can be sublime so long as they invoke the sensation of being overwhelmed. In these more "technologically sublime" settings, the sublime does not refer to God's will and overwhelming power because these objects are man made. The evolution of these terms creates confusion regarding the relationship between God, place, and transcendence. "At the core of any sublime experience is a passion that Burke defined: 'The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, no by consequence reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force'" (Nye 9). With the greatest attribute to the sublime being Astonishment, it is not surprising that expressions of the sublime were used to describe the massive mills and boardinghouses of Lowell and other factory towns.

The "combination of complexity and order on a massive scale" (Nye 113) in the mills and the factory towns impressed many visitors. The sublimity of the buildings was undeniable. "Burke argued that 'a successive disposition of uniform parts in the same right line' could be sublime" (Nye 113). The Amoskeag mills "stretched for half a mile along the Merrimack River" (Nye 113), the repetition of windows along the length of the building which is directly on the edge of the river invokes a feeling of Astonishment. It is incredible to think of the work and thought which went into the completion of such a task. While the buildings and boarding houses were usually established in a particular order with emphasis on regulation of the girls, "the external architecture was less remarked upon than the floors of machinery inside. The early modern factory presented a system of linked machines that many ordinary observers could barely grasp, virtually compelling their admiration for the ingenuousness of its mechanical contrivances" (Nye 114). In "Pleasures of Factory Life" Sarah Bagley notes that "in the mill we see displays of the wonderful power of the mind. Who can closely examine all the movements of the complicated, curious machinery, and not be led to the reflection, that the mind is boundless, and is destined to rise higher and still higher; and that it can accomplish almost any thing on which it fixes its attention" (Lowell 64). As much as the "view of a large factory room humming with incessant activity created astonishment at the ingenuity and apparent perfection of the arrangements" (Nye 115), many visitors were most impressed by the "cohorts of workers who seemed to be marshaled into an ideal order" (Nye 115). The women, who stood side by side working in the mills made an impression not only because of their rigid discipline but also because of their healthy appearance. Emerson, when visiting to give a lecture to the girls, "was astonished to see them 'all wakeful and interested, all well-dressed and lady-like'" (Nye 112). In contrast to the quote given above by Sarah Bagley and the impressions of visitors, the impressions of the mill girls on the sublimity of the factories "was something experienced only on the first day at work" (Nye 116). But this is not surprising. One could imagine Niagara Falls losing its charm if one were at the top tossing buckets of water over the edge for inspired Transcendentalists.

Transcendence or transformation was most often associated with a natural setting but the Lowell women applied these ideologies to their own experiences in the factories. Only about eight percent[1] are recorded for supporting their family financially. The rest were free to use their earnings for "individualistic purposes" (Dublin 37). "The mills offered individual self-support, enabled women to enjoy urban amenities not available in their rural communities, and gave them a measure of economic and social independence from their families" (Dublin 40). For many girls, after their work in the mills they married city boys and returned to the country only for occasional visits with their families. "Life in Lowell was more than a brief sojourn in the years before marriage; work constituted an entry into the urban industrial world and signaled a permanent departure from the one in which they had grown up" (Dublin 54).

Another factor important to Transcendental philosophy is self reliance; an independence of thought that trusts the power of God and the word of God expressed in His creations. Because of the connection between man and God experienced in natural settings, it was imperative to the Transcendentalists that one spend time in nature. Why walk into your backyard like Thoreau, to be surrounded by nature and its passive beauty when you could hop on a train and hear the roaring cataract of Niagara Falls? Increased traveling mobility found transcendentalists fleeing to sublime settings. The sublime in nature seemed to have a more immediate connection with man and God. The awe inspired in the presence of God's masterpieces enticed many wanderers into unfamiliar territory. The combination of a physical displacement from home and being faced with the sublime in nature made an indelible impression on the viewer.

The Lowell girls also emphasized self reliance. In their writing they noted the young age at which they left their families in the White Mountains. They acquired a sense of independence from the considerable earnings they made in the factories which often went to clothing, education, or a dowry. "The probability is strong that it was the women themselves who decided how to spend their earnings" (Dublin 36). "For them life in Lowell was more than a brief sojourn in the years before marriage; work constituted an entry into the urban industrial world and signaled a permanent departure from the one in which they had grown up" (Dublin 54). The ideas of self-reliance, an improvement of the mind and soul connected with displacement and a sublime setting were emphasized in the Lowell writings. Learning about the transcendental ideologies through their frequent lectures and their appetite for reading inspired the Mill girls to incorporate these ideas into their writings in an attempt to simultaneously credit their situation and to improve themselves in a similar manner to those who insist on them.

While adopting the ideologies of self-reliance and education encouraged by transcendentalism, the women in the mills also adopted popular attitudes about women's station in life. As such, they played continuously on the selflessness of the girls in their writing. In one story, "The Affections Illustrated in Factory Life: the Sister," a young girl named Hannah who works in the factory to make extra money for her brother who is courting a woman of a higher class. When Hannah falls fatally ill, the secret of her brother's situation and her attempts to help him are revealed to the fiancé. Near the end of the story, when the snotty elitist fiancé, Olivia resolves to stay with the deceptive brother, she exclaims; "Her love has saved us all" (Lowell Offering 92). Her selfless sacrifice to her brother is mimicked in many other stories about young women leaving their comfortable homes for the factories where they send home the greater part of their salary to feed orphaned brothers and sisters or to send a brother to college. As Dublin points out these selfless characters are part of the mill girls erroneous representations of themselves. "The view of women's motivations that emerges from analysis of their social origins and correspondence with their families stands in sharp contrast to contemporary writings, especially to the Lowell Offering.... In the repeated 'factory tales' published in the Offering,, writers stressed the selfless motivations that sent women into the mills. Characters in the stories were invariable orphans supporting themselves and younger brothers and sisters, or young women helping to pay off the mortgage on a family homestead or to send a brother to college, or widows raising and supporting families. Never, in the fiction at least, did an operative work in the mills in order to buy 'new clothes' or to get away from a domineering father, though in real life these motivations must have been common enough" (Dublin 39).

The ideas behind transcendentalism developed into a trend. Its attitudes were imitated in writing and lifestyles by many young people. The similarities are notable between the these philosophies and the behaviors of the Lowell women. Writers like Margaret Fuller and Nathaniel Hawthorne left their homes to visit Niagara Falls where upon long contemplation they experienced an individual enjoyment. Hawthorne's "enjoyment became the more rapturous, because no poet shared it, nor wretch devoid of poetry profaned it; but the spot so famous through the world was all my own" (Hawthorne 254). The experience and the setting were much his own according to Emerson's claim that "Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate" (Emerson 29). Fuller saw the "full wonder of the scene" (Fuller 72) but admitted that it was difficult to replicate the experience.

When Fuller or Hawthorne visited Niagara, they went with a sense that they would be overwhelmed by the sight of Niagara, that its sublimity would send them into deep contemplation which would provide them with high poetical and philosophical thoughts. They hoped to be changed by their enlightening experience, an education of the heart and soul. The girls at Lowell went to the factories for similar reasons. They hoped that their experiences there would change them. They worked hard to better themselves through education and stimulating conversations. They led virtuous, God loving lives. Like Hawthorne and Fuller, the women approached factory life with "anticipated enjoyments" (Hawthorne 244) followed by a brief disillusionment, then with hard work and much heavy contemplation they made of their experience all that they could and felt themselves changed and improved for the effort. The continuous push of water streaming down Niagara; its thunderous crash at the bottom, the Lowell women saw the similar meditative possibilities in the factories. "There all the powers of the mind are made active by our animating exercise; and having but one kind of labor to perform, we need not give all our thoughts to that, but leave them measurably free fro reflection on other matters" (Lowell 63). A woman named Mary Paul wrote to her father: "They are traveling for pleasure I expect and came her to see as people go to Niagara {Falls} to see" (Dublin 56).

Though some argue that the women's station was relatively unchanged by their work in the mills, it is undeniable that their attitudes were changed. They may have married in the same class, but they now married in the city and stayed there opposed to their farm friends. "The mill experience signaled the beginning of a new life" (Dublin 57). They "rejected the values of their parents" (Dublin 550.

The most intelligent and enterprising of the farmer's daughters become school-teachers, or tenders of shops, or factory girls. They contemn the calling of their father, and will nine times out ten, marry a mechanic in preference to a farmer. They know that marrying a farmer is a serious business. They remember their worn-out mothers (Dublin 55).

This quote, from an 1858 article, "Farming in New England" supports not only that the women felt the change in their own lives, but also that this change was recognized in them by their family and communities.

It is clear that the mill women experienced something close to what the Transcendentalists claimed was a spiritual transformation. Unlike Hawthorne and Fuller, whose experiences peaked in their representation of them through art, the mill girls used their writings to verify their experiences. The movement from the mills to the factories coupled by their development from homespun country girls to educated, well dressed, well mannered, marriageable women gave them a sense of independence unavailable to them through other routes. Though the women still struggled with acceptance after their experience in the mill, they were much more accepted than they would have been had they moved directly to the city. Moreover, the large kin networks of cousins and sisters who worked in the mills together gave them a supportive sense of community. It is difficult to establish, despite the wealth of information on the Lowell experience, whether the transformation of attitudes and desires noted among the mill women was a result of their experiences in the mills or of the rapidly changing time. Unquestionably, though, these women set out to experience life and take risks for independence that women of all times can appreciate.

Questions or Comments? Email me at kbabson@reed.edu